Travelogue : Paris - Arrival

Last month when I was at the Mini Europa park in Brussels, while going around the miniature replica models of the European monuments, one city that caught my fascination was Paris. For past couple of summers, I had been making plans to visit Paris, but they never materialised due to some odd reason or the other - either not having an appropriate group to go around with or not having booked the tickets or accomodations well in advance. Over the last 1 or 2 years the cheap flight schemes have changed the way people travel and plan their holidays in Europe. Ryan Air, German Wings, Easy Jet and similar flight services have some good offers for backpackers and young travellers like me, who dont mind the absence of the occasional courtesy of the air hostesses or the free onflight beverages during the relatively short flights inside Europe. Though these cheap flying offers have become a phenomenon in the travel airspace, one has to take these offers with a pinch of salt. The reduction in the ticket prices is often offset by the extra travel one has to endure coming to the city center from the airports where these flights operate, because sometimes these airports are quite a bit far and wide away from the city perimeter. And in cases like Paris Beauvais airport, the travel in the shuttle bus from Beauvais airport to the city ring of Paris is almost as long as the flight duration from Venice Treviso. To add to my travel woes, my baggage arrived in a badly handled shape. Though I checked in my tripod as fragile baggage, it reached Paris severely demented. I am not sure if I could be able to use it for taking precise night shots as I used to before.

The Beauvais airport shuttle bus drops you at the Porte Maillot center. We had a booking in a hotel close to the metro station of Porte de Vincennes and so we took the metro line 1 directly from Porte Maillot which took us straight to our destination. As I had mentioned in my previous post related to travelling in Greece (about arriving in Athens), I am personally receptive to the general vibes of a city from the initial infrastructure the city presents to its visitors. I am a big fan of the metro services in cosmopolitan cities. Living in Munich, I used to enjoy the luxury of hopping around the city in a well connected network of U-bahn which would run late into the nights. Though the U-bahns in Frankfurt were not as clean and tidy as compared to Munich, they connected the city pretty well and helped thousands of commuters move around the city without much chaos. Among the metro networks, I rate the London Underground the best. I found it amazingly organised and well managed. Inspite of being a complex network, the Underground stations are built in a planned manner, helping a new commuter or a visiting tourist through simplistic use of colour codes for the various lines. The metro network in Paris (owing to the size of the city and its over 2 million inhabitants) is a similarly complex but well organised network. Since we were too tired with the exhaustive travel (spending the same amount of time in the very uncomfortable seats of Ryan Air and the very comfortable seats of the shuttle bus), we didnt have much energy or zest to explore anything that night and headed straight to the hotel room.

I had taken French as a subject during my college days. For two years we had read the story of the Vincent Family travelling to France from Canada and experienced their vacation in Paris through the textual description of the L'Alliance Francaise text book used in India to teach French language by numerous colleges and high schools. I salute my French teacher who had taken the effort to work on our accent and rectified our grammar. Being an Indian, we had a naturally heavy accent in the French we spoke in the class. I still remember the absurd manner in which our other friends (who did not take French as a subject) would pronounce the title of the ballad "La belle dame sans merci" (written by John Keats), during our English poetry classes. As a student back then I had sincerely hoped to visit Paris some day and see in reality the places and streets I had read so much about. Over the years, sadly to say I have lost my touch with the French language, but I can still manage to understand the written French and some tidbits of spoken French. After having learnt French and getting an interface with the French culture, it was a natural progression to take interest in anything related to or connected to France. When the "Les Blues" won the Fifa World Cup in 1998, I was the biggest supporter of France in my neighbourhood. Since then Zidane has been an idol to me and I have been religously following his matches. Though Zidane is not a Parisian and I don't expect to see any of the current French footballers in Paris, as a die-hard fan of the French team I was very much eager to see the most vouched city of all Frenchmen. As is my ritual custom of watching a movie or reading a novel based on the country or the city I am planning to visit - before departing for Paris, I had seen "The Da Vinci Code" and "Mr. Bean's Holiday". Though there have been some better movies and novels based on the city of Paris, I could only manage to lay my hands on these. With my mind virtually on the streets of Paris and refreshed with my petit French vocabulary, I was all very excited to see the city I had dreamt to see since my school days.

The Mahabharat between BCCI and ICL

The ICL kicked up a strom yesterday by releasing its list of players who have currently signed contracts with them. The list popped up some surprises - names like Dinesh Mongia, who recently played for India and some promising newcomers like Ambati Rayudu showed some growing unrest among Indian cricketers against the hegemony of BCCI. In my opinion the players have taken a bold but correct decision to join the ICL. Cricket in India is followed like a religon. You go to any city gymkhana, you would find budding cricketers toiling it hard to make an impression on the selecters and breaking into the team - be it at the club level, zonal level, state level or Ranjhi level. The path to the Indian national team is the toughest one - working hard, performing in each of the matches at each of those levels, then waiting to win some favor from the regional selectors. Without a god-father who can market you to the national level, its a very tough dream to come true for thousands of budding cricketers across the length and breadth of India. There have been numerous cricketers who spent their entire career playing Ranjhi games and other national leagues, without getting a single game for the country. The match fees of a game in any of these leagues is like peanuts as compared to the match fees the 11 players representing the national colors get paid. Imagine the plight of these players when they see their counterparts taking home all the money, limelight and publicity, just because they were not fortunate enough to get that single break into the national squad. And when an opportunity like ICL comes along, its natural for these players to grab it with both hands. BCCI has long maintained its monopoly on the game and has toyed with the careers of so many cricketers who could have had international careers were they born in other countries where the waiting queue is not so high. With this mass exodus of the players to the new league, the domestic cricket in India has recieved a major setback. Teams like Hyderabad, Bengal and Punjab have been severely effected. As a knee-jerk reaction BCCI has raised the match fees for the domestic leagues in a hope to retain the remaining players. But the ball has been set rolling by the ICL and we can surely expect to hear more news on this front about player defections.

Apart from the domestic players, each of the teams in the ICL are planned to have some international stars in their line-up. Some big names were doing the rounds for a while now. Brian Lara is a confirmed to play the league, while some big guns from the Aussies are still pondering the thought of taking the plunge or not. Big hitters from South Africa like Lance Klusener have already signed, while the erstwhile stars from the Kiwi-land, Chris Harris, Chirs Cairns, and Nathan Astle are showing some interest in the league. Players from across the border added some more excitement to the list. Inzamam joining the ICL was predictable owing to the rough path his career was heading after the listless and forgettable 2007 he has had. After retiring from the ODIs his Test career also looks almost over, with the PCB giving him a cold shoulder. Joining the ICL could have been the best option for him to derive benefit of the 1 or 2 years of cricket left in him - as they say make as much hay as possible while the sun shines! But the jolt out of blue which Pakistan cricket recieved was losing their most dependable player, their spine of the batting line up - Mohammed Yousuf. Yousuf recently had the best patch of form in batting, accumulating runs like a kid collecting pebbles on a sandy beach. After the World Cup fiasco, the PCB was sure to make changes to their team composition. But in the process of a giving a new look to their team, the PCB has lost out on its golden-egg-laying-hen. With Yousuf joining the ICL and if PCB sticks to its guns of not selecting him for the national team, then Pakistan will recieve a great setback. With its bowlers already struggling to remain fit or clear of any drug scandals, their batting line up sans the big Inzy, the inform-run-machine Yousuf and the maverick Younis Khan, Pakistan team would need to depend on prayers than ever before to give any kind of fight to the opponents!

Travelogue: Verona

While I was in school I had enacted the character of the judge in the play of The Merchant of Venice. Back then the names Antonio, Bassanio and Shylock were strange sounding to us. Later when I read other Shakespeareren works like Romeo & Juilet or The Two Gentlemen of Verona, I began to agnise the prominence of the city of Verona in the writings of this famous bard. Little had I envisaged then, that one day I could be visiting this city. Verona lies in the Veneto region of north-east Italy about 80 km from Trento, my current resident town. So on the sunny weekend last week, I decided to make a trip to Verona.

It is claimed that after Roma it is Verona that has the most number of ruins of the Roman era. All the major touristic sights are along the river Adige which takes a contorted path along the city. The Castelvecchio is an impressive 14th century castle, now hosting a great collection of the Renaissance era. On its exterior is the Ponte Scaligero offering great views of the Adige on either side. In its vicinity is the cathedral of San Zeno Maggiore. This ornate Romanesque church is adorned with an impressive rose window and a magnificent cieling resembling an upturned boat. The exterior walls are elaborately decorated with ivory-coloured tufa and pink limestone.

One of the major attractions of Verona is the massive Arena from the Roman times, which is still in a functional state and hosts plenty of events, orchestras etc. In its prime days, it could accomodate the entire population of Verona who would gather to watch the gladitorial combats. Now it regularly hosts plenty of operas and orchestras. Listening to a prima donna in a perfectly acoustic environ under the cool summer night sky with a pleasant breeze blowing is an experience worth cherishing with your loved ones.

Talking about love, Verona is hometown to two of the most famous lovers of all time - Romeo and Juliet. The house of Juliet, located at Via Cappello, is a major draw point for all tourists - young and old alike. Couples (females especially) love to stand on the small marble balcony, the famed balcony on which Romeo is said to have climbed to meet his love. There is a statue of Juliet in the courtyard and the rumour has it that if one holds his/her palm over her bossom then your love is deemed to succeed. If only Romeo had done this when required then probably they would have had much greater luck with their love!

On the gates you find numerous locks which people hang in to bind their love for eternity. The walls of the walkway are spangled with love messages written in all kinds of languages the world has known. Inspite of a heavy penalty on being caught people smitten by the love bug always find methods to make a statement of their love on these hallowed walls!

Travelogue: Belgium - Brussels, Antwerp

Belgium is a potpourri of various cultures like Dutch, French and German. Often termed as the "cockpit of Europe", Belgium is the center of government for the European Union and is theoretically the capital of Europe. The capital Brussels is home to several offices and commissionerates of the EU with striking buildings dotting the skyline of present day Brussels.

The lower part of Brussels is well connected with trams and Metro stations from the Gare Centrale (Main Railway Station). The Grand Place square, with Hôtel de Ville and La Maison du Roi is the historical and commercial heart of Brussels and draws huge amount of tourists. La Maison du Roi is now being used to host a museum of paintings, tapestries and a collection of costumes created for the Manneken Pis. The Hôtel de Ville, built in the 15th century, is elaborately donned with ornate columns, sculptures and arcades. There are tours avaiable to view the tapestries and art work decorating the lavish halls of this town hall. Around the city center you would find a lot of shops serving hot waffeln with various delicious toppings. There are several shops selling the world-renowned Belgian chocolates. There is the Tintin official store close by selling souveniers and comic books of this famous character created by Herge.

The Cathédrale Sts-Michel et Gudule is the national church of Belgium. The west door of the cathedral has a magnificent stained glass window depicting scenes from the Last Judgement. The Palais Royal is the official residence of the Belgian Monarchy and has beautifully managed gardens sprawling at its entrance.

On the city outskirts is another popular tourist attraction - the Bruparck. It has the Mini Europe park, which has miniature models of major buildings and monuments from the various countries of the EU. Towering in its backdrop is another distinctive landmark - Atomium building, which represents the atomic structure of Iron. The Atomium has restaurants and viewing platform on its top, which presents panoramic views of the city.

Antwerp is the second major city of Belgium and is famous for its diamond markets. The Grote Markt is located at the center of the old city. At the square is the Brabo fountain with the statue of Silvius Brabo. The ornately decorated facades of the Stadhuis overlook the city square which is always crowded with visitors. Around 70% of the worlds diamonds are cut and polished here. The city has a lot of museums like the Diamond Museum, Plantin-Moretus Museum, Koninklijk Museum etc, displaying an impressive collection of various artworks, paintings of the 16th and 17th century.

The Gmail Video

You never get bored with the Google guys, they keep popping up with interesting ideas every now and then. The Gmail page has this new link which invites you to join their collaborative video on the Gmail service. Its a very simple idea, all you need to do is download the M-velope icon print it and use it in your video. How, where, what to shoot in the video is completely your choice. But the M-velope needs to be present in the video and it should appear to float from the left to the right of the screen. Your videos have to be 10 seconds in length and can be submitted using your Google ID. The guys with the scissors at Google will then select the best ones to compile an interesting video. Aint it fun ?